


Divine Guidance

by Fickle_Obsessions



Series: Sweet Baby, I Need Fresh Blood [9]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Belts, Biting, Blood Drinking, Dom/sub, Flogging, Hair-pulling, M/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-22 00:09:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8265472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fickle_Obsessions/pseuds/Fickle_Obsessions
Summary: America's Founding Vampires. George Washington is the sire of a coven (more like harem) of vampires.Vampire Ben Tallmadge -- newly made, easily overwhelmed, and still a little too softhearted -- needs special care, a guiding hand.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For [grumblebee](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grumblebee) because she had a rough day and she deserves a little subby Ben and guiding George for getting through it.

The first night after Ben loses his humanity is spent lost in Hamilton’s magpie-like curiosity about Ben’s newness, and Washington’s protectiveness of it. He hardly has a minute to himself think, and he’s grateful for it. He passes the hours under Hamilton’s seeking, curious fingers and within the circle of Washington’s arms. Pleasure, pain and obedience make for familiar territory even in his new form. He never quite forgets that he is changed, but he does not dwell, and when the sun rises, unseen behind heavy curtains, Ben slips into a darkness free of anything like dreams. 

When Ben wakes he find Hamilton gone, but Washington is there, waiting, watching Ben. He is still and silent in that way he can be, as if he would be content to let a year go by before he found a reason to move or speak. Washington comes to life when Ben meets his eye. He slips his fingers into Ben’s hair, and ah, the feeling of that now, with senses this sharp, is almost too much. Ben can feel how every follicle shifts in a cascade, one strand touching another, touching another. The sound of his hair sliding over Washington’s fingers echoes in his ear. 

He shuts his eyes and shudders through it, and Washington’s hand slips down to cups his neck with a reassuring firmness. 

Ben looks up at him again, and his sire seems much the way he always has, except that Ben can now count each of Washington’s eyelashes by the light of a single candle burning on a table near the door. 

Washington lets him look a long time before he speaks, “You’ll need to hunt tonight.” 

Ben presses his lips together, and feels how the long canines behind them threaten to pierce the skin. He did expect that he would not have his victims served to him often, but he wishes he might have had another night. 

Ben knows better than to ask for a reprieve. He asks instead, “Will you come with me?”

Washington smiles at him, coaxes him to sit up with the hand on cupping Ben’s neck. “Of course.” 

Ben rises and prepares to go out into the night. 

In a dozen small ways Ben finds the act of washing and dressing different now, but though Ben marks each of them -- how pouring water into the basin now sounds like a flood, how the smell of soap is so sharp it almost burns his nose, and all the impossibly varied textures he can detect in his clothes -- he is not much distracted. His hands are steady, and he moves through the house with a sureness. He feels as if he is more awake than he has ever been before. 

Even so, Washington is always near, always within an arm’s reach, and he steps even closer to Ben when they near the front door. Pausing a moment, Washington places one hand upon the small of Ben’s back as his other reaches for the doorknob, and Ben can’t imagine why he should need to be guided outside. 

Then the door cracks open and the scent of the night comes rushing in. 

Were it not for Washington’s guiding hand Ben might remained, stunned and unmoving, on the front step, but instead he is taken out away from the lights of the house and into a strange world. With his heightened sense of sight the light of even the waxing moon seems as bright as the sun. But the moon is not the sun, its light is much colder. It illuminates the landscape in a way wholly different than daylight, and reveals colors that are new to Ben’s eyes, greens and blues and greys such as he has never seen before in his life. 

To see the world with completely changed would be enough, but the air carries a thousand different scents from every direction, pleasant and unpleasant, and Ben can hardly make sense of them. There are sounds, too, birds, insects, animals, and, somewhere very far off, a brook, the sound of water tumbling over rocks. He can follow it, he realizes. He tracks the sound of the water all the way to wear it disappears beneath a bridge and begins to echo against the stones above. 

It’s fascinating, so fascinating Ben realizes he has forgotten to breathe. He doesn’t know how long he has been standing there, turning his head, staring, listening, scenting the night air, but he imagines Washington must be getting impatient. Ben turns, intending to apologize, but instead he gasps. 

Washington is quite near, watching Ben without a hint of hurry in his demeanor, but his eyes are- glowing would be entirely the wrong word. They are not casting off their own light, but reflecting it, all the white light of the moon shining back like the eyes of a cat. It would be frightening if he did know Washington’s face so very well, if he did not know beyond a doubt that Washington was looking at him with such strange eyes in kindness. 

“What do you think of it?” The sound of his voice briefly drowns out the rest of the noise. 

Ben inhales, but finds he has no words. He shakes his head, looks away and tries to make sense of all he can see, all he can hear. “You said that it would be different, but I did not have the imagination necessary to anticipate this.”

Washington nods at him, understanding. “Very soon it will become as natural to you as anything you have seen or heard before.” 

Ben turns his head back to the night, and tracks the path of an owl as it flies somewhere among the trees. He can hear, too, the mouse that it is stalking as it moves in the grass. 

Washington’s hand returns to the small of Ben’s back, and presses ever so slightly towards the road that will take them away from the estate. “Shall we?”

Ben follows Washington’s lead. 

They walk, and at first the sound of their feet upon the road are overwhelming, annoying. Each step crushes and grinds gravel beneath boot leather, and Ben wishes he could cover his ears, but he knows he’d hear the sound just as well as it reverberated in his bones. Washington’s hand at his back pushes him forward, and eventually, just as Washington predicted, the sound recedes. It remains ever present but it becomes easy to ignore, and soon enough Ben hears something far sweeter. 

It is a far off heartbeat, a steady two-part rhythm, push and pull. He can hear how the blood echoes faintly in the chambers of the heart like a voice in a cathedral. Ben begins to walk so quickly that Washington’s hand on his back slips around to his side, holding him back. 

By the time Ben sees the owner of the heartbeat, first a shapeless hat and then the small white speck of his shirt cresting a far hill followed by the rest of him as he walks, Ben is straining against Washington’s hold. 

“Patience, dear boy,” Washington says, pulling Ben a step back for the first time. Ben whines and tries for the first time to shake Washington’s hold on him. For his trouble he is suddenly grasped in both hands and turned to face Washington. “Patience,” he says again. His eyes flash dangerously in the moonlight, and Ben is still. 

Washington studies Ben’s face until he is satisfied. He turns back to the road, his arm very firmly wrapped around Ben’s waist. “For many nights your lessons will all be on patience,” he says, and his voice is close enough that it can distract Ben from the sound of the heartbeat. “What will you do when you come near him?” 

“Overpower him,” Ben says. He is not yet as strong as Washington, but he is stronger now. Strong enough to hold a man still as he drains him. 

“Where?” Washington asks. “Right where you come to him on the road?” 

Ben had thought that he would, they are all of them quite alone on the road. He can tell, however, that this is not the answer Washington would want to hear, and stays silent. “Imagine if a horse and rider came thundering down the road,” Washington wonders. “Right as you were in the midst of feeding.” 

Frowning, Ben listens. “I hear no horse.” 

“There can be any number of reasons for that, Benjamin. Your senses are splendid now but you are not omniscient.” 

Ben nods, trying to pay attention, but as they talk the man is getting ever closer, and with every step taken -- by the man, by Washington and Ben -- the heartbeat gets louder. 

“Think, Benjamin,” Washington says, suddenly pulling Ben tighter against him, demanding his attention. “What will you do?” 

Ben struggles to answer. He casts his eyes about for any likely clue, and notices at last the stone wall hugging the road. “Lay him down by the stone wall,” he says at last. “We’ll be hidden from the road.”

Washington tuts at Ben, “It is not so high a wall that man on horseback would not see you there.”

At a loss, Ben groans in frustration. “I do not know, sir.” 

“You do,” Washington snaps at him. “You have been hunting with us on too many occasions to be so very artless, Benjamin.” His hand leaves Ben’s waist and comes down upon the back of his neck, and he grabs a handful of both flesh and hair and holds Ben still as he gasps. “Calm yourself and think.”

Disappointing Washington has never been an option Ben has allowed himself. He rallies his focus, and bullies himself into ignoring the siren call of the man’s heartbeat. For the first time, Ben’s mind departs the present and offers up his memories of nights he has watched from the sidelines of a hunt. At first he thinks only of what he cannot do, Washington, Hamilton and even Arnold can enthrall a victim, make him quiet and obedient, make him follow them anywhere. Ben will not be able to do that for decades yet. By now he can hear the blood pounding in the man’s veins, the sound of distant waves to go with the steady drumming of his heart. 

Ben reminds himself he shall not have it unless he answers Washington’s questions. He thinks instead to nights when they do not use their power, when boredom induces them make a game of it. He thinks of how they entice, and how they wait, how they follow on silent feet and- 

“I’ll pass him by,” Ben says softly. He looks up at Washington and sees no frustration, no rebuke. Ben follows the thread, “We’ll make him think that we have continued on our way, that he needn’t think of us again.” 

“Yes,” Washington says. “You have it exactly. And then?”

Ben looks behind them, and sees a copse of trees they passed some minutes ago. They are near enough to the road, all Ben need do is get the man over the wall, and then he can push him down into the brush and grass. If Ben is still, and silent, no one would know he was there in the dark. “The trees,” he answers, looking back at Washington’s face. 

Washington smiles at him, teeth white in the moonlight. 

Though it is excruciating they do exactly as Ben planned. The sound of the heartbeat gets louder and louder and becomes all Ben can think about. Only Washington’s grip, now moved down to his shoulder, keeps Ben moving in a straight line, keeps him committed to their course of action. It is truly awful to hear the heartbeat receding, to fear that it might disappear, be lost in the night. 

Twice Ben tries to turn back, thinking surely that enough time has passed, but Washington will not let him. The third time, mercifully, Washington lets him turn from the road, but he stops him for a final warning. “There’s no magic to stalking.” He holds Ben’s face in his hands, claiming as much focus as he can. “You will not be silent unless you try. You must listen to your footsteps, and step carefully.”

Ben nods frantically. “I will, sir. I promise.” 

Washington drops his hands from Ben’s face, and sets him free. Ben leaves him immediately, and closes the distance again between himself and the man as he runs, crouched, beside the stone wall. A dozen times he thinks he’s spoiled it, gone too quickly or too loudly, but then at last he is two steps behind the oblivious man, mirroring each of his steps while ahead of them the trees loom taller and taller. Ben’s fingers flex and curl, flex and curl, and then reach out. 

Ben clamps a hand over the man’s mouth, and wraps an arm around his waist. Washington could probably lift him as if he were a feather pillow, but the man is not so very light to Ben, he has to exert himself. He manages, perhaps not gracefully, but it does not matter. Very soon he is too lost in the pleasure of feeding to worry about how he might have looked. 

Ben startles halfway through when he feels hands gently rest upon his shoulders, but after a moment of panic he remembers. They must be Washington’s, and of course they are. Ben shuts his eyes and drinks, content as Washington’s hands slip around and pull Ben back against his chest. 

Eventually Washington speaks, tells Ben to stop like he did last night. He wants to argue, insist that he can still hear the heartbeat, it hasn't stopped, but it's slowing down. It sounds further and further away with every swallow. Ben feels Washington's hands grip him tighter, hears him take in a breath. Ben does not make him say it again, with considerable effort he pulls his mouth away. 

“Good, Benjamin,” Washington says, taking Ben's chin in his fingers. He turns Ben's head, gets Ben's mouth under his. “You did very well.”

Ben drops the limp body from his arms and accepts Washington's kiss. He turns, wraps his arms around Washington’s neck and lets his sire lick again and again into his mouth. It’s not until some minutes later, when Washington gently breaks the kiss, that Ben realizes he can no longer hear a heartbeat. He feels a cold spot of regret in his chest where a moment before there had only been the warmth of fresh blood.

Washington produces a knife from beneath the folds of his cloak and Ben knows very well what to do with it. The corpse is made to look as if it were an ordinary highway robbery, and then they leave it for the crows to find in the morning. 

They are silent as they walk, and Ben splits the time between marveling at the night, and reliving it. In his mind’s eye he sees the man’s face, recalling it far more clearly than his first victim, given to him by Hamilton and taken while in Washington’s arms, or any other victim he has seen taken by Washington and his family. This one had been all his own.

On the horizon, the house appears, a bright beacon of yellow candlelight glowing through the parlor room curtains. Ben can hear Hamilton playing the harpsichord inside well before the door is opened and once he crosses the threshold, Ben stands in the foyer, listening. Hamilton is playing as he usually does, correctly, but without much inspiration. He thinks it proper that a gentlemen know an instrument and appreciate the skill it takes to play, but so far it appears that Hamilton is the only one in their family so convinced. 

Ben thinks several times that he ought to go into the parlor, but his feet do not move. Finally, Hamilton concludes his playing, and Ben feels suddenly bereft of the excuse to stay as he is, rooted to one spot. Washington’s hands find him again, and drawing him down the hall and up the stairs. 

The bedroom is as they left it, dark and empty, the curtains drawn. Washington lights the candle again, and Ben’s nostrils twitch at the sparks from the fire steel and then smell of the smoke. The candle wick pops as the flame catches, and Ben turns to watch Washington come to him. 

He cups Ben's face, tips it up for a kiss. Though Ben tries to respond, he's slowed by his distraction, by the part of himself still out there under the trees. 

Washington moves back with a sigh, he looks down at Ben still cupping his face. “There is sometimes one that stays,” he says, finally.

“Sir?”

“A face,” Washington says as he drops his hand to Ben’s collar. “A sound they make.” He continues while his fingers pull at the buttons of his jacket. “Something you learn about them after it is finished.” 

Ben lets Washington push his jacket from his shoulders. He catches it neatly as it slips past Ben’s elbows, and folds it over the chest at the end of the bed. Washington turns back toward Ben and pulls the hem of his shirt free, “It will stay with you for many years, bright and vivid among all the shadows before it finally fades.” 

Washington lifts the hem of the shirt up and Ben raises his arms obediently, feeling more like a child than a lover. The cold feeling settled in his chest seems to douse the usual excitement he feels at Washington’s attention, his proximity. The shirt joins the jacket, and Washington bids Ben to sit down on the bed. Washington kneels, and takes Ben’s boots in his hands. “It sounds to you now like a hard thing, doesn’t it?” he asks, tugging the first one off. “Years of remembering?” 

“It does,” Ben confesses as Washington slips off the other boot. 

Looking at him from where he is carefully rolling down Ben’s stockings, Washington shakes his head. “It will pass in the blink of an eye.” He rises smoothly up from the floor, pushing into Ben’s space, pushing him down against the bed. “You will have years enough to remember and forget entire lifetimes.”

Washington makes quick work of Ben’s belt, and pulls until it has slid free from under Ben's back. Ben watches Washington carefully wind the leather around his fingers, and his lips part as he feels for the first prickle of arousal. Washington sets the belt, neatly coiled, onto the bed. 

“And you will have these lifetimes because I gave them to you,” Washington’s voice is stern, hard. It insists on Ben’s attention, and he gives it. “You asked for it, Benjamin, while saying that you wished to be mine.” 

“Sir, I do. I swear, I-” He yelps when Washington flips him easily over onto his stomach, hands rough and Ben couldn’t be more grateful for it. Washington fills up Ben’s mind when he like this, he pushes everything out as if he cannot stand to share Ben with even a thought. He will not be satisfied with anything less than claiming Ben entirely. Even now, Ben thinks, shuddering in guilty pleasure as Washington’s fingers hook in Ben’s breeches

“Then remember that,” Washington orders as he pulls them off in two sharp, hard tugs. “Above all else.”

“Yes, sir.” His keen hearing catches the sound of the belt being picked up again, and Ben digs his fingers into the blankets and shuts eyes, waiting. 

Ben’s breath hitches at the first snap of leather against his skin, then sighs, long and slow, in relief. 

It goes the way it usually does after that, hard and then soft. First the belt and then Washington’s tongue after that, the tip of it chasing the scant amount of blood he drew across Ben’s skin as he sighs and gasps beneath him. Ben is very nearly soothed completely when Washington’s hand winds in his hair and pulls him up from the bed. 

Ben is ordered to undress Washington with an impatient sigh, as if he can scarcely believe that Ben did not think to offer before it was demanded. Ben atones for his mistake by paying special care to Washington’s clothing, as well as the skin he reveals. Each time he is careless, pulls too hard at the lace, the fastenings, Washington corrects him and he does so until Ben is easy, loose-limbed, until he almost cannot keep his head up, or his spine straight. 

Washington takes pity on him and lays him out again across the bed. He opens Ben up with gentle, steady fingers and it would be too sweet if Washington did not occasionally sink his teeth into the meat of Ben’s thighs. By the time Washington enters him, Ben is beyond regret, beyond reason, beyond any sort of thought. There is no need to worry now. He is claimed, he is owned, and he is pleasing the one who owns him. He knows that he is, because Washington tells him so, in words, in the force of his thrusts.

By the time that it is over, after Ben has served Washington as perfectly as he is able, after Ben has sobbed out his pleasure, he is spread out over Washington’s chest and allowed to take all the time in the world to come to his senses again. He wishes the pain would linger like it did when he was human, buzzing and warm under his skin. It remains only in memory, but Washington seems to know. He strokes Ben’s hair while he drifts, and each time he slips his fingers over Ben’s scalp he gives the hair just the slightest tug to remind him. Ben hums every now and then, appreciating it. 

Again and again Ben thinks he ought to say something, say at last that he is grateful, that he will learn to be patient, that he will learn not to regret, but again and again he chooses to remain silent. Across the room the candle flame sputters and goes out, beyond the heavy curtains on the window night gives way to day, and Ben slips into a dreamless darkness.


End file.
